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Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

A quick little update on the Roku Streaming Stick now that I've had it for a few weeks.

I use it every day for most of my media consumption. I'm a fan of the product. The remote could be better though. It uses WIDI and when you use it for the first time in a while it seems to have to "wake up", so you will need to hit a button twice to get it to respond. After that second button is pushed though it works fine. Not a big deal, but a little annoying. That's really been my only issue with it, and it's really nothing big.

I do use the TV's USB port as a power source for it, so I do need to wait for it to boot up each time I turn my tv on. If you use the provided cord that comes with it though and plug it into the wall, it is ready to go whenever you turn your tv on. I'd rather just not see the cords as much as possible, so I keep it all tucked behind the tv and just use the USB port (not all USB ports on TVs are powered, but most newer TVs are).

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by mole44

Signing up for sling.tv and I have the opportunity to get a free Fire TV Stick, Roku stick or $50 off the Fire TV or Roku 3. We already have a Fire Stick in one room and it works mostly fine, but I am wondering if the Roku is any better. Or if the Fire TV is worth the extra money. We do not use prime video so that isn't really a plus for the Fire's. I kinda like that the Roku 3 has the headphone jack since it would likely go in the bedroom and I could watch while the wife slept but really thats about the only feature that looks better on paper to me. Anyone have experience with both? Which one do you like better?

I can't help you out on a comparison, but I can't recommend Roku enough. The selection of apps/channels (whatever you want to call them) can't be beat. You just get more options on things to watch with the Roku, though if you aren't going to use them it doesn't matter much.

I've been looking at getting in on that Sling deal and grabbing another Roku Streaming Stick out of it. Just not sure I can convince myself to do it. The Sling has most of the channels I watch available, but there are a few that I would be without. Also, since I'm bundling my internet/cable, I'm saving a few bucks on the internet that would disappear if I dropped it, which eats into the savings from moving to Sling. I've been meaning to check out some reviews of the service now that it's out there for anyone to use.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Ended up going with the Roku stick. Figured I might as well try every device out there lol. We now stream from: Xbox 360, PS3, Chromcast, Fire Stick and the Roku stick is on the way.

As far as Sling goes, I think it works pretty well. At least for our needs. My wife literally watched nothing but Food and HGTV when we had Directv so this was a blessing for us. The PC app is a little frustrating to use but the Fire TV app worked very well. I was surprised at the limited problems it had in this early stage and the picture is excellent. If the channel lineup is what you watch, I would definitely recommend it. I'm sure they will continue to add channels too. AMC is already signed on, just working out the details supposedly.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by dougdirt

A computer with an HDMI cord. Just about any laptop made in the last few years will have an HDMI port that you can use to hook it up to a tv.

Unfortunately my one laptop, which I use in the bedroom, is slightly older - but works great - doesn't have HDMI. But I got around that yesterday. I have an SVGA cable, and an audio cable, so I hooked it up via that route. It works great.

"In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by SunDeck

So what's the diff between, say a Roku and a Roku stick, other than size? Are there differences in speed or capacity? I don't think the stick was available when I bought my Roku 3.

None of them have "capacity" so to speak, they don't have drives in them that you can use to store things other than your channels.

The Roku set top boxes, at least the newer ones (the 2 and the 3) have the headphone jack on the remote, while the stick does not. They all have slightly different features. The Roku 3 is the best one you can get. It's the fastest, has the remote that can be used for the games, has the ethernet port (this is the only one that has this option) and it has a USB and Micro SD card slot (also the only one that has this option). The Roku streaming stick though does everything the 1 or 2 does, but also offers more. The stick and Roku 3 are the only ones that allow you to mirror/extend your Windows 8.1 computers desktop through the roku.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Thanks for the explanation of the differences, Doug.

I was referring to memory capacity, which certainly has something to do with how fast a device can process requests, etc. For instance, this comparison of a Fire TV stick comes from a google search:

It's got 8GB of built-in flash storage and 1GB of memory, compared to 2GB of built-in storage and 512MB of memory on the Chromecast, and 256MB of storage and 512MB of memory on the Roku Streaming Stick.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by mole44

Ended up going with the Roku stick. Figured I might as well try every device out there lol. We now stream from: Xbox 360, PS3, Chromcast, Fire Stick and the Roku stick is on the way.

As far as Sling goes, I think it works pretty well. At least for our needs. My wife literally watched nothing but Food and HGTV when we had Directv so this was a blessing for us. The PC app is a little frustrating to use but the Fire TV app worked very well. I was surprised at the limited problems it had in this early stage and the picture is excellent. If the channel lineup is what you watch, I would definitely recommend it. I'm sure they will continue to add channels too. AMC is already signed on, just working out the details supposedly.

I signed up for the 7 day sling.tv trial today. I bought a laptop that I basically have permanently hooked up to my living room tv (hidden behind one of the entertainment center doors) and I've been using the sling PC app and it's been pretty amazing. I may drop my cable. I have the AT&T gigabit internet so I don't have a problem streaming video in several different rooms at the same time. I think I'm gonna take advantage of their deal and get a Fire stick.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by Razor Shines

I signed up for the 7 day sling.tv trial today. I bought a laptop that I basically have permanently hooked up to my living room tv (hidden behind one of the entertainment center doors) and I've been using the sling PC app and it's been pretty amazing. I may drop my cable. I have the AT&T gigabit internet so I don't have a problem streaming video in several different rooms at the same time. I think I'm gonna take advantage of their deal and get a Fire stick.

Maybe it was just my Laptop, but I wasn't a fan of the Sling PC app. It looks and works great on the fire stick however.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

We have 3 tvs. 1 streaming device for each. I have a roku and 2 chromecasts.

I love both and fully recommend them both depending on how you plan to use them and your technology comfort level. The biggest advantage to roku imo is its a lot more user friendly wrt setup and is why I put two in at my parents house for them instead of a chromecast.

The reasons I love chromecast:
The showbox app + using localcast let's you cast movies, shows directly to the TV from the largest library out there. Roku doesn't support this due to copyright issues, but chromecast is kinda the wild wild west in this regard.

Here's a screenshot from my phone of some of the content on showbox. Being able to watch all that plus shows ranging from every HBO, showtime, basic cable, and network TV pretty much has made Netflix , Hulu, and cable TV entirely unnecessary to me.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Those Fire Sticks are hard to find. I was getting groceries at Target and I figured I'd just grab one while I was there. Apparently they're exclusive with Best Buy and Staples. Not a single Fire Stick at either retailer in the greater Austin area.

Re: Roku/Apple TV/Amazon Fire TV/Chromecast - What do you have? What do you like?

Originally Posted by Razor Shines

Those Fire Sticks are hard to find. I was getting groceries at Target and I figured I'd just grab one while I was there. Apparently they're exclusive with Best Buy and Staples. Not a single Fire Stick at either retailer in the greater Austin area.

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